JOANNA'S FOOD: family cooking, from scratch, every day

Tuesday, October 07, 2008

This is our new cooker ... on a good day it takes the same amount of time to heat up as an electric oven. We can cook supper AND heat our large kitchen with a couple of logs. After three weeks I STILL can't get over it ...

PS If you look carefully, you can see a mouse carved into the chair leg ... the signature of the Mouseman

Thanks for all your comments. Yes, I AM lucky ... it's fabulously warming, and I'm learning how to cook on it. It's an Esse Ironheart. I love it. I'll be posting about it soon, because the cooking techniques are a little different, and there's not much literature. But anyone with an ordinary woodburner can do some of the things this will do.

The mouseman chair was a present. If you're ever in Yorkshire, it's well worth visiting the works, you can see the craftsmen carving.

Hiya, I love Esse's and have been promised one for when we do the kitchen out (instead of the gas powered AGA which I hate!). How do you find the ironheart? I've been looking at the woodburning range becuase I wasn't sure teh ironheart would be enough for use as a cooker.

Sorry it's taken me so long to get round to your comment ... LOVE my Esse, summer will be hard without it, although I'm planning to build a brick oven in the garden. I've done virtually all my cooking on it this winter, and it's easily possible - but you DO need back-up for the summer, and for those moments when you're not quite concentrating. That said, I've baked Victoria sponges, loads of bread, some biscuits etc etc

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About

We live in the countryside near Henley on Thames in Oxfordshire. This blog describes the food I make for our family: I'm not an expert, but I do cook from scratch every day. It's partly a health thing (less salt and sugar, better quality ingredients), partly because I prefer to buy food as locally as possible (great butcher nearby, a lovely Italian deli, I belong to a food co-op, a weekly vegetable box, flour from local mills). I try not to use supermarkets much, but don't always succeed. Each year, I grow a little more of our food, mainly herbs and tomatoes; I'm far too idle to grow maincrop potatoes, but this year we're growing salads and many more vegetables. We keep hens; I plan to keep bees, which would make me a third generation beekeeper. I bake all our own bread, although my children would prefer to be allowed to eat sliced white in peace.

From the start in 2005, I have written this blog mostly for myself: to help me keep track of recipes and links. I'm not saying what I do is best (or even better); I'm just writing down what I do. It gives me huge pleasure that my children use this blog when they want a recipe; I am also proud of the number of cyberfriends I have made (and met) over the years.

If you want to contact me, this is where to start: joannacary AT gmail DOT com

I'm happy to publish comments so long as I know who they are from. I have comment moderation for older posts, to block irritating spam which appears daily from Japan on a couple of posts. I will always delete anonymous comments, however flattering.